Petrosyan

BACKGROUND

This family has a long and contentious history in family court, but the record before us is limited. In August 2013, the family court entered a judgment providing mother and father with joint physical and legal custody of S.Z., with alternating weeks of parenting time. That order is not part of the record on appeal. On February 5, 2018, family court Judge Christine Byrd entered an order following a multi-day hearing on competing requests by both mother and father to modify the custody order. Previously, the parties had extensively litigated custody and visitation issues based on concerns that mother was abusing substances. Temporary orders were entered, giving father sole physical custody, providing that mother’s visitation was to be monitored, and that mother was required to drug test. Mother consistently tested positive for marijuana, or refused to test, missed some tests, and other tests were “dilute,” which created concerns that mother was tampering with the tests. Text messages suggested that mother used cocaine and ecstasy. Mother had been addicted to Xanax for four years, attended a “detox” program in 2016, and then switched to marijuana to control her anxiety…